Automobile technology has disclosed headlamp systems in which the light distribution or the light-emission pattern is produced by a plurality of light sources (e.g. by a plurality of LEDs arranged in a row and/or as a two-dimensional matrix).
Conventional headlamp systems, use is made of a plurality of individually switchable light sources (usually LEDs) in order to design the resultant light-emission pattern to be variable. Here, the variation of the light-emission pattern is usually restricted to brightness variations of the corresponding regions in the light distribution, which are actuated by the respective light sources.
What is common to all headlamp systems for automobile technology is that a so-called basic light distribution (e.g. dimmed headlamps, near field lighting) is required for safety in traffic, said basic light distribution typically not being changeable or only changeable to a small extent. If the intention is to design the light distribution to be variable (e.g. to highlight objects or adapt the light distribution or the light-emission pattern to a particular speed), a “constant” portion and a “variable” portion of the light-emission pattern are required. These two portions are provided by different optical systems, meaning a great outlay in terms of costs and components. Moreover, such different optical systems typically require a lot of installation space and are susceptible to external influences such as tremors, etc.